


One-way ticket (to a place where all the demons go)

by Mellaithwen



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Batman and Robin Eternal (Comics), DCU (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics), Under the Red Hood
Genre: Angst, Flashbacks, Gen, Psychological Trauma, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-15
Updated: 2016-01-15
Packaged: 2018-05-14 04:54:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5730244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mellaithwen/pseuds/Mellaithwen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>He opens his eyes and he’s a child again. He’s not the Red Hood. He’s Robin. He’s fifteen years old, his head is pounding, and the few ribs he has left that aren’t cracked, are surely broken.</i>
</p><p>
  <b>Spoilers for Batman and Robin Eternal #15</b>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	One-way ticket (to a place where all the demons go)

**Author's Note:**

> * First fic of 2016, and it's a completely unplanned one that has nothing to do with my ever-growing WIP pile...  
> * The title is from Sia's _Alive_ , which I accidentally left on repeat while I wrote this.
> 
> This picks up straight after Batman and Robin Eternal #15, because I only just got to reading it, and I couldn't leave it alone.

“Jason Todd wishes to understand Ithycys? He shall experience it first hand.”

 

_No, not again._

 

Jason can hear that godawful chuckling inside of his helmet, and the last time that happened he was nearly burned to death by the acid the Joker had put in his mask. 

 

_You were too stubborn to stay dead,_ the Joker had said then, _so here’s what we’re going to do…_

 

But this isn’t a hologram, and his mask—his face—isn’t on fire, but he thinks his mind might be. There’s a pulsing behind his eyes that he can’t escape, and he’s gritting his teeth hard enough that they could shatter at any moment. 

 

And then there’s that voice. That laughter.

 

_Oh birdboy, you know who I am…_

 

He opens his eyes and he’s a child again. He’s not the Red Hood. He’s _Robin_.He’s fifteen years old, his head is pounding, and the few ribs he has left that aren’t cracked, are surely broken. He can feel one of them poking at his liver. He spits blood, and he thinks his jaw might be broken too. The fingers on his left hand are definitely fractured, and his brain is fuzzy. Everything hurts, but despite all of that, Jason can’t stop hoping and praying for Batman to arrive. He doesn’t care if that makes him weak, or childish. He’s frightened, and he’s hurting, and he wants his father to save him.

 

“Why the long face, kiddo?” The Joker asks, spinning the bloody crowbar around in his hand, like he’s itching to get first place in the twirling baton round of _Little Miss Gotham_. 

 

“Go to hell,” fifteen-year-old Jason had spat back then. The first time. Trying to sound cocky, when really he’d been just plain scared. All the training in the world couldn’t have prepared him for being holed up inside of a warehouse with a homicidal maniac that won’t let him go. Won’t let him live.

 

“You’re not real.” Jay says instead, desperate for it to be true, trying to sift through his fractured memories of before and after. 

 

But he’s exhausted. Tired of reliving his death every other month. Tired of the reminder that his life was ripped away by some psycho with a fetish for violence. Finally, his shitty life is starting to resemble something other than the garbage pile he’s been content with for so long, and now this? Again? 

 

The crowbar comes down with a swing. It breaks his arm. He remembers this part. It’ll be his knee next. That’s when he’ll see the clock. That’s when he’ll look up through his cracked mask, and see the countdown. That’s when the chair he’s tied to will topple over and—

 

_You’re not tied to a chair_ , some shred of sanity in the back of his head hastens to remind him, whispering almost kindly.

 

And the voice is right. He’s not tied up at all, but he’s paralysed with the fear that he’s forever doomed to have this moment repeat itself over and over again. He’s stuck in a never ending cycle—tormented by his killer, having his own trauma waved around in front of him. Just when he thinks he’s made it to dry land, the wave of pain crashes on top of him and he’s drowning once more. 

 

If it isn’t his own nightmares haunting him then it’s those of others being forced upon him. If it’s not Scarecrow and his toxins, or Ivy and her pollen, or some other flashback inducing freakshow—then it’s the clown himself, clawing his way back from the grave like he always does. 

 

Like he always will.

 

They can’t win against him. They can’t beat him.…they….they can’t….

 

“Hellooo? Earth to bird-brain,” that sick, sing-song voice commands his attention once more, swishing his horrid weapon through the air, relishing in the weight of it. “Don’t go passing out on me, you’ll ruin all the fun.”

 

Jason shudders.

 

There’s no way out.

 

“Jason, it’s not real.” A voice says, insistently. 

 

But—

 

“He’s not here, I swear to you, he’s not here.”

 

He’s being dragged somewhere, and the second Jason realises as much, he flails—pushing himself as far away from his captor’s hands as possible. The crowbar’s gone. He’s not restrained, and his lungs can expand with each breath without being punctured by a floating rib or two. 

 

“Please, please snap out of it.”

 

Jason finally finds the clasp at the back of his mask—near the base of his skull. Once released, he grabs the helmet and throws it as far as he can. In its absence he clutches his hair in his fists and pulls hard until the shock of pain has him pulled out of the flashback, away from the last awful threads of the vision.

 

He blinks, and breathes, and blinks again.

 

“T-Tim?” He stutters, because his throat is hoarse from years-old screams, and he can still taste copper in his mouth. He licks his lips, and realises that that’s not part of the hallucination—in his Joker-induced-panic shitshow, he must have bitten clean through his own tongue, and that’s why he can taste blood now as clearly as he could back then. 

 

“Jay, you with me?” Tim asks, his expression pinched with concern, looking about as crappy as Jason feels. 

 

He ignores him for a moment, looking around the room instead. It’s dark, and they’re clearly hiding, but from who? The Joker? No, that can’t be right, the Joker’s dead. Bruce killed him, and lost himself in the process. Their fearless leader is gone.

 

For a second, as though the event was happening all over again, Jason feels something akin to grief. The memories of the Joker are as crisp as ever, and his skin is crawling with it. His hands are shaking.

 

“Breathe, Jay.” Tim says, crouching down. At some point Jason had curled in on himself, and now he’s huddled against the wall, with his knees drawn up to his chest—his bulky frame now almost small. 

 

He starts reciting lyrics in his head, any song that comes to mind, until he can say with at least a modicum of conviction, “I’m good, Tim, I’m good.”

 

Tim doesn’t look convinced, but that’s to be expected. 

 

Jason wants to ask how his little brother got away. How he not only managed to get himself to safety, but Jason too—even though Jay would’ve fought him at every turn, thinking he was the enemy—hopelessly entombed in the horrors of the past. He wants to know where they are. He wants to know what Mother wants, and where Azrael is, and what the hell is going on. 

 

He wants his heart to stop beating out of his chest. He wants Bruce to remember. He wants a chance at rebuilding his messed up family again, and he wants to sleep, for days. But more than any of that, more than any _thing_ , he wants that bastard clown _out of his head_. 

 

“He’s not here, Jay.” Tim says, matter-of-factly, as he keeps a look out, trying to hide how his body is hunched in on itself, in obvious pain from his own ordeal.

 

“That obvious?” Jason snorts, giving his brother the once over, and trying to determine if either of them have the strength to get out of this one alive. 

 

Tim looks sad for a second, and Jay wonders if the astute Red Robin is going to push the matter. 

 

He doesn’t.

 

“I think the coast is clear. You ready for this?” Tim asks instead, pushing himself to his feet and holding his hand out to help Jason do the same. 

 

Jason clenches his fists, readying himself for another bout in this ridiculous fight, with too many players and too many unknowns and each of them all shouldering too many burdens from their dysfunctional pasts. This has to end. They’re ending it.

 

“Jay?”

 

“Yeah, Tim,” he says, with a forced smile that looks ghoulish with blood smeared across his front teeth. “I’m ready.”

 

.

**Author's Note:**

> feel free to say hello on [tumblr](http://mellaithwen.tumblr.com/)


End file.
